Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Cognitive Dissonance Watch: The St Louis Cardinals and Booze

The view of the ballgame from the right-field pavilion isn't exactly the best Dodger Stadium has to offer, but Bryan Collins was enjoying the evening anyway. Even before the second inning had begun, he had eaten six hot dogs. Before the side was retired, he had also consumed a bag of peanuts and several handfuls of cheese-drenched nachos.

And Mr. Collins, a lanky 16-year-old from La Cañada, Calif., didn't plan to stop there. "We'll see if my stomach can handle it," he said. Nearly a dozen of his friends were similarly engaged.

While I find the WSJ and NYT's use of formal titles for folks to be a pleasantly quaint practice, it seems to me that someone who eats six hot dogs, a bag of peanuts, and cheesy nachos before the second inning forfeits the right to be called "Mr." But that's not what interests me about this article. This is:

While teams such as the NHL's Florida Panthers and baseball's St. Louis Cardinals have tried this with cheaper seats -- at the Cardinals' Busch Stadium, inclusive packages even include beer -- these tickets still cost $60 or more.

For those of you keeping score at home, the St. Louis Cardinals -- who just had a relief pitcher die in a horrific drunk driving incident and made a big show of how responsible they are by banning beer in the clubhouse -- offers all-you-can-drink beer to fans who buy tickets in certain sections.

While I think the clubhouse bans are an empty P.R. exercise, if a team is going to go through the motions of pretending to care about alcohol abuse, wouldn't it be wise to put an end to the beer troughs in the cheap seats?